


Of Love and Land

by midnightblack07



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightblack07/pseuds/midnightblack07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Downton Abbey inspired AU - When Eddard Stark, the owner of one of the largest estates in England, Winterfell, dies on the sunken Titanic along with his wife and sole son, Robb, only his daughters Sansa and Arya are left. Given the absence of a male heir, the estate is inherited by their estranged cousin Jon Snow, who lived the entirely of his life on his own mysterious father’s modest lands in Scotland. </p><p>While Arya adores cousin Jon, Sansa is as disconcerted by him as he seems to be by her…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Love and Land

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Note:** So, this is the first I've written in about a year and a half and WOW does it feel great! Sadly, Bran and Rickon don't exist in this verse as much as I adore them (I wasn't certain how to tie them into things, especially with wanting to ensure that there were no male heirs among Ned's children). I'm thinking this will be about 3 chapters, hopefully I can get the next one up sometime this weekend :)

+

 

The dour black, bland and morose as it is, agrees with her.

It's a vain thought, and one that tugs at the strings of her conscience almost the second it's conceived, but an accurate one nonetheless. There is something almost alluring in the way the dark silk clashes with the pale of her skin and the red of her hair.

_So red, like mother's had been..._

The weeks that have come to pass have not lessened the ache Sansa feels in her chest at the thought of her mother (or her father or her brother). There's a hollowness to it now that hadn't been there before perhaps, but little else has changed.  


"My Lady," Lilah, her lady's maid, prompts her gently. "Shall I see who's there?"  


Sansa had not registered the knocking on her bedroom door, as immersed in her thoughts as she had been. But before she could instruct Lilah, her sister was barging (for that was really the only appropriate word for what Arya was doing at the moment) in.  


"You still aren't ready?" She frowned, puzzled as always by the meticulous care Sansa took in her appearance.  


"I'm nearly finished."  


Sansa's eyes meet Lilah's in the mirror and the other girl nodded her agreement with a small smile.  


"Uncle Petyr is here again."  


Now it was Sansa's turn to frown.  


It was not that Uncle Petyr was an _unwelcome_ guest exactly, but rather that the sudden frequency of his visits (and, more recently, the content of them) puzzled her slightly. His visits were few and far between when her father and mother had been alive, tense as the relationship between her mother and Aunt Lysa had been, and despite the fact that her mother considered him a brother in his own right. Although, Sansa always had the distinct impression that her father was not keen on him, though why she could never quite tell.  


Since their passing however, Uncle Petyr's visits were near daily, at first with Aunt Lysa and cousin Robin in tow, and then with only cousin Robin, and then more recently with none other than himself.  


The words they exchanged during his last visit still gave her pause, for though they were not _explicitly_ disturbing, his investment in the matter (particularly when her own Aunt seemed to have so little) disconcerted her slightly.  


"How well do you know this Scottish cousin of yours?" He'd asked, his hands clasped behind his back as they strolled the lands alongside one another.  


"Jon? He's not quite Scottish," she corrected him gently, "truthfully I can hardly say I know him at all. We crossed paths the few times he came to visit when we were younger, but it's Arya that can really say she knows him."  


And there was the truth indeed, for her sister had spent a number of seasons (for reasons that still mystified Sansa) visiting their cousin's modest estate where she could ride and hunt and do as she pleased without mother's disapproval hanging over her.  


She, on the other hand, had barely paid him any attention at all when he visited as a young boy (a few years older than her, but a young boy nonetheless). In truth, she thought him dour and difficult to read-- _dull_ even. She remembered trying to teach him to dance for a brief period of time, but he proved a poor student and she was not the most patient of teachers in those days. A part of her wonderd (shameful as it is) if she would have acted differently, had she known that everything her family held dear (their land, their home their people) would end up in his grasp all those years later.  


"If he causes you any... discomfort, my doors--your aunt's--are always open to you, Sansa," he stops and turns to her, and for a second it seemed as if he wanted to reach for her but thought better of it. "To you and your sister, of course."  


"Thank you, uncle."  


She nodded and smiled politely, but she wondered if her Aunt Lysa truly shared her uncle's sentiments, and--if not--why he would do what his wife who was of their own blood did not seem to feel necessary.  


His presence today only served to confuse her further, for they did not decide that he should join them in welcoming Jon Snow to Winterfell, nor did he express any interest in being present when last they spoke.  


When the sisters greet him prior to waiting for the arrival to their cousin at the main doors however, she does not let any of her misgivings color their interaction. She lets him kiss her on the cheek (as he has taken to doing lately) and smiles as he kisses Arya's hand, lets him take her arm into his own as they make their way to the main doors.  


It is some time before Jon Snow's car stops before the crowd that awaits him (for the staff and tenants, many of whom insisted on being there to greet the new lord today, of Winterfell were plenty), and Sansa decides that he is not what she expected at all.  


Jon Snow is dark haired and handsome, with a rather striking resemblance to her father (so striking it makes her chest ache, again). The cloths he wears, while not quite shabby, still bear the signs of wear that come with long journeys, as does the set of his shoulders.  


He does not smile (though that she expected), at least not until he lays eyes on Arya. To Sansa's surprise, her sister runs to him, enveloping him in a hug that is most improper, though he returns it with equal fervor.  


"I'm sorry, I should have come sooner," she hears him whisper into her sisters hair, and a part of her begins to feel like an intruder on an intimate moment.  


"You should be," Arya says back, shameless as ever she supposes. "But you're here now."  


For the first time in a long time, she's unsure of what she should do with herself during what _should have_ been a formal introduction. To run to her cousin and embrace him the way Arya did would be most unnatural for the both of them. To wait until Jon makes his way towards her and extend her hand for a kiss after Arya's affectionate spectacle would seem distant and haughty. What would stand as an appropriate middle ground?  


Jon Snow saves her the trouble of having to figure it out when his eyes meet hers over Arya's shoulder. He pats her sister gently and disentangles himself from her, making his way towards Sansa.  


She extends her hand for a kiss without thought (so accustomed is she to the gesture), and when Jon hesitates before taking it she regrets it. He does take it eventually though, brushing a soft kiss to the back of her hand that tingles from the roughness of his beard in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant.  


"Cousin Jon," she nods and smiles prettily.  


"Lady Sansa," he nods back, though the smile he gives her is nowhere near as wide as the one he gave Arya and she feels her own falter.  


_What did you expect, really?_  


"Please, just Sansa."  


"Cousin Sansa, then" he inclines his head, and for all his hesitation in taking her hand at first, it's only then that he releases it from his grasp.

 

+

 

Dinner does little to soothe her misgivings.  


Arya dominates the conversation in a way she never has before, booming with memories of their riding together along the fields in Scotland, bombarding their cousin with questions on his activities in her absence, teasing and more at ease Sansa has seen her in a long time.  


"I'm told you don't enjoy riding, Sansa," Uncle Petyr interjects when there's finally an opening (for her sister can be quite relentless really), and though she appreciates his effrots to include her in the conversation, she can't help but wish he'd chosen something less likely to highlight the differences between herself and the two she's now to share her home with even further.  


"Hates it?! She absolutely abhors it!" Her sister answers on her behalf.  


"I'm not partial to it, no."  


"What do you enjoy doing, cousin Sansa," Jon asks, with what seems to be genuine curiosity.  


"I enjoy reading and music, the piano in particular."  


She leaves out that she enjoys to sing as well.  


"I'd love to hear you play--if you'd be so inclined."  


She rewards his proposal with a smile and a nod of acquiescence. Her smile is genuine (possibly the first of its kind since the start of this day), for if she knows anything about the Jon Snow of their younger years--and just as likely the Jon Snow of today--it's that he has never been one for empty words and pleasantries. If he asks to hear her play, it can only be because he truly wants to.  


"Perhaps we can enjoy some of your fine playing later this evening, dear Sansa. What better way to welcome Winterfell's new lord?" Uncle Petyr chimes in.  


And just like that, the reminder that Jon Snow is here to take what was once her father's, what would have been her brother's, puts her off even the lemon meringue pies the cooks had made with her in mind.

 

+

 

She's no stranger to attention, admired as she has been by many a young man among the peerage, but something seems _different_ about the sort of attention that's being paid to her tonight.  


She feels Jon's eyes on her the entire time her fingers glide along the keys.  


There's nothing lascivious in the way he stares at her, but there is a directness to it that's unlike anything she's ever seen among the men (boys really) she has known. He simply _watches_ her, eyes dark and unreadable and unrelenting in their pursuit and it's a wonder she does not falter.  


Uncle Petyr watches her too, a smile on his lips, his green eyes glinting in a way that she's come to find strangely unsettling all the while.  


It's only Arya that seems to be paying her no attention at all (though there's nothing new in that regard), though she claps as politely as the rest of them when Sansa's through.  


"Beautifully done, dearest!" Uncle Petyr applauds. "Wouldn't you say, lord Snow?"  


"Indeed," Jon nods, but he does not smile.

 

+

 

They fall into a routine of sorts in the coming weeks, though not one that Sansa can claim is necessarily to her liking.  


Her sister and cousin Jon seem content to spend their time in only one another's company, often leaving Sansa to her own devices throughout the vast majority of the day, save meal times.  


It's during those times that Sansa misses her parents and dear brother the most, for neither her doting parents nor her protective (often disturbingly so, or so she'd thought at the time) brother had ever left her wanting for company--even when she herself may have preferred solitude.  


It is during one of those times that cousin Jon stumbles upon her on the grounds, her tears flowing freely down her cheeks and her nose likely as red as her hair.  


Her only consolation is that he seems as mortified as she is by this unexpected encounter.  


"Sansa, I--are you alright?" He steps closer, arm reached out as if ready to soothe her, before it falls at his side.  


Aside from the times he brushed a kiss against the back of her hand, there has never been any sort of physical contact between them; not in the way there is between him and Arya.  


"Forgive me," she brushes her tears aside, sniffling as inconspicuously as possible. "I don't know what's come over me."  


She attempts a smile, but the way his eyes soften and his brows furrow tell her she'd be fortunate if she has managed anything akin to one.  


"Sansa, you have nothing to apologize for, you're grieving."  


"It's only that so much has changed, really," she whispers, and she regrets the words as soon as they leave her because what is the boy ( _man_ now) who stands before her if not one of those very changes?  


Had her parents and her brother still been alive, the likelihood that Sansa Stark and Jon Snow would have crossed paths more than a handful of times (if even that) throughout the remainder of their natural lives would have been doubtful.  


His simple life on the fields of Scotland, away from those who whisper of his mother and her hasty marriage and her jilted fiancé, who still wonder if he was conceived _before_ or during the bonds of matrimony, would not have coincided with Sansa's life among those very peers.  


And yet, here the two of them stand, he lord and master of all her family had held dear, and she soon to be a guest in another lord and lady's home.  


"What will you and your sister do, once lord Snow marries?" Uncle Petyr had asked her during his most recent visit.  


"We will welcome his wife as we would a third sister," she had responded, for it was the only appropriate one to give.  


"How _noble_ of you both."  


A part of her still wondered if he had been mocking her then.  


"Sansa, Winterfell belongs to you and Arya."  


And though the words are barely a whisper, they are firm and his eyes bore into hers as he says them, imploring her to understand.  


"I can never not think of you as its lady."  


"You best not let your wife to be hear you say such a thing," she teases, and to her surprise (and amusement) his face reddens.  


"You needn't worry about that."  


"No?" She raises a brow in question, genuinely intrigued by his rather odd declaration.  


"No."  


He does not elaborate, and she does not press him any further.  


And yet, as he escorts her back to the manor, even as the conversation has turned to the nature of his adjustment to his new role, she can't help but wonder _why_ he would make such an adamant declaration.  


Surely there must have been a girl--a number of them really, for even she can see that he's terribly handsome with his dark curls and equally dark eyes.  


It's only when those eyes linger on her again that she realizes she'd been openly staring, and now it's her turn to blush.  


Jon has the grace not to comment, nor does he use her nearly gawking at him as an opening for flirtatious banter the way many boys she'd known would have. Strange that she's now finding a certain appeal to his forthrightness when a younger version of herself would have found it a dull quality (an a younger version of herself did in fact think it--and him--terribly dull).  


And when he smiles at the sight of Arya making her way towards them, his face lighting up in a way that's most appealing, Sansa's certain that a woman could do worse than Jon Snow.  


 _Far_ worse.

+


End file.
